Posted
by
Zonk
on Monday July 02, 2007 @03:08AM
from the who-needs-the-kwik-e-mart-now-comes-the-tricky-part dept.

caffiend666 writes "According to a Yahoo News story some 7-11s are being rebranded into Simpsons 'Kwik-E-Marts' . The makeover includes fronting on the buildings that make it look like a cartoon, Simpsons merchandise on the shelves, and Simpsons show brands available for purchase in the store. From the article: 'The Fox/7-Eleven deal is an example of a practice called reverse product placement. Instead of just putting products prominently in a movie or TV show, fake goods move from the screen to reality ... Customers have been looking at Squishees and KrustyO's and Buzz Cola for years and have never been able to put their hands on it.' Since the film is PG-13, no Duff beer will be available in the stores." If you're looking for one near you, 7-11 has the list of locations on their website.

I've been restless tonight and couldn't sleep, so I took the ~10mi drive down there just to pass some time, it was great down there, the woman at the counter said that people have been driving from all over town just to get squishees. (I guess I proved her right.)

MacDonalds has decided to rebrand themselves to the more authentic "Krusty Burger" corporate image.

Lou: I went to the McDonalds over in Shelbyville the other day.
Chief Wiggum: The Mc-what?
Lou: Yeah, I never heard of it either but they say they have over 2000 locations in this state alone.
Eddie: Hmm...Must've sprung up over night.
Lou: But you know, its the little differences.
Chief Wiggum: Example?
Lou: Well at a McDonalds you can get a Krusty Burger with cheese. But they don't call it a Krusty Bu

Although this time is sanctioned, its not the first time Simpsons products have made it into real life. About 10 years ago, an Australian brewery started brewing Duff beer. Fox sued, the beer was pulled.

Anyone who managed to get their hands on some Duff were lucky. Empty beer cans went for $20 or more [ebay.com.au] on ebay.

I collect beers, and have a full can of Duff... That, my Darwin Stubby (they still make them), and an old tin XXXX from god knows when (it's in flOz) are my faves. All full too. I've got mates who drank a few cartons of Duff when it was available, they're not real happy about that. 'Specially since it wasn't really good:)

What's the incentive in collecting *full* cans of beer? AIU, beer doesn't get better with age, so why bother? If all you're after is the pretty pictures on the bottle/can, why not drink the beer when it's still drinkable?

It is about collecting things. Collectors usually prefer unopened items (like those star wars figures - they are worth more when they are still in their plastic containers).

{RANT ON}Personally I hate collectors. My gf dad is a big one. It is a pretty big indication of how selfish and greedy we are in the west, that we prize this stupid old crap, and artificially inflate the value of trash like this. As you say, the beer would have gone of. I see collecting more as a psychological disease. A sickness that comes about from having too much money and space. A disease of the wealth.

Atleast the kind of collection that precludes actual use. Collecting unopened beer-cans, so the beer will spoil, is silly and serves no purpose. Saving and taking care of something *without* degrading use is however valuable. It's a good thing there are people in the world who cares for and maintains old (otherwise "junk") cars, planes, boats, paintings, stamps, books, whatever.

We're not selfish or greedy because we collect; we just have so many resources that collecting useless crap doesn't interfere with our basic needs. It has no value until someone assigns a value to it that is disproportionally greater than the material and labor costs involved in the original production.

Why do you assume collectors always pay more than the cost of materials and labor?

Lots of people collect things that they find along the side of the road, for free. Other people collect stuff like salt and

I collect Belgian beer glasses. I generally pick them up at brocantes (kind of like garage sales but in the treet) where I usually pay less than it would cost for the contents. Or if there's an offer on (like buy 12 bottles and get a commemmorative glass) I do so. It's not like the beer will get wasted - though I might.I also collect old computer games - I've so many old ones I've bought and not played out that I rarely buy new ones. If there's something I really like I buy it when it's dropped by 30% -

First, why not? Any old titrat can collect empty beers. And it's not to increase their worth. Only the Duff is worth anything (other than replacement value for me), and I've no intention of ever selling them so it's irrelevant. Second, not all beers go off as quickly as you think, either. I have a Maudite that's about 7 years old, and I intended to drink it when I got more, because it gets better with age (until about 8 or 9 years IIRC). Unfortunately they changed the bottle design by the time I managed to

Why DOESN'T 7-11 become Kwik-E mart? Nationwide? It would turn the gazillions of shows that will be on independent TV stations and YouTube for the next 30 years into walking, talking, joking advertisements for a nationwide, popular chain! And, it would turn a nationwide chain of convenience stores into a real-life, living, touch-it advertisement for one of the most popular TV show franchises ever!

Pacific Bell became SBC which became ATT in less than 5 years. Somehow, the company has maintained its identity throughout. So why can't a well-off nationwide chain like 7-11? If they rebranded some generic beer (think Miller) as "Duff Beer", it'd be a shoe-in!

I love the Simpsons, it's been an indelible part of our family culture for years. Seriously - why not?

There's already something called Quickie Convenience [quickiestores.com] stores in Canada. The stores were founded in 1973, when the Simpsons debuted in 1987 (as short sketches.) Even if it isn't a protected trademark in the United States, there will be a problem should Quickie expand across countries.

I'm not a lawyer and thus can't really tell if a trademark is being "violated" here. However, the name sounds very similar to each other.

Also 7-11 is a well know and generally well thought of brands. Most advertisers would consider elevating any trademark to the level of recognition the 7-11 has a huge success. Until you know that people would rather shop at Kwik-E-Mart why would you abandon a valuable asset like the 7-11 mark? Also 7-11 is in may ways part of our popular culture as well, if you simply make it go away all at once on day people might be resentful of that.

In a suburb of Pittsburgh where I am from and travel to frequently, there is almost NO 7-Elevens. How can one area have so many and another have almost none? Strange.

Because other chains are more prevalent. There are several Pennsylvania based convienence store chaise: Sheetz, Uni-Mart, Co-Go's, Country Fair, and probably others which I'm forgetting. If one were to open a new convenience store, there are many good reasons to choose to franchise a brand which is already common in your region. Advertising, for one, since you will gain benefit from corporate advertising. I often see Sheetz ads. I almost never see 7-11 ads.

And the kegs of McDuff are quite inexpensive... The brewery was named after the owner whos last name was Duff. I think it was around before the Simpsons but the guy couldn't be bothered fighting with Fox. Fox paid for the rebranding though.

Although this time is sanctioned, its not the first time Simpsons products have made it into real life

A restaurant chain in Australia also goes by the name Lazy Moes [google.com.au]. They use signage which definitely appears to be in a similar style to that on the Simpsons. At least to the same extent as the popular culture references used in the show.

Springfield is very specifically not placed in any given state. Groening has admitted it bears some particular resemblance to Portland, but canonical references can rule out absolutely every location on Earth. Frankly, I see a lot of similarity with my homeland in Southern Ontario, and I'm not the first to suggest it (despite the obvious problems like it's the wrong country, the nuclear plants are the wrong design, etc.). Winnipeg also gets honourable mention from Groening.
The Springfield of the Simpsons is Everytown, USA.

Speaking of life following America movies (I hesitate to use the word art for what Hollywood produces...) whats next? Will we have a a US President embark on a false war to solve his domestic problems ala Dogs of War... Wait that already happened didnt it? Never Mind

That happens a lot. The rabid Israeli right did the same thing in Lebanon twice and it didn't really keep them in power either time. The USSR did it in Afganistan as their empire was falling apart and that didn't help much either.

The 7-11s near me have been getting various levels of the Kwik-E-Mart treatment, so even if yours isn't on the list it's worth checking out what subset you might have. I was so psyched to be drinking of a real Squishee cup, with an Apu straw, while walking out of the store with a 6-pack of Buzz Cola and some Krusty-O's today.

Way back in 1992 or 1993 or thereabouts (sometime between Tracey Langton going upstairs to get a book and coming back down following an apparent head transplant), there was a fictitious supermarket called "Bettabuy" in Coronation Street, managed by Reg Holdsworth. The scenes were filmed on location in a branch of Morrisons [morrisons.co.uk]. Morrisons launched a range of "economy" products (you know; the ones that are packaged to look like UN disaster relief, in the hope that you'll find a few extra pennies to rub together and buy something that doesn't mark you out to the checkout operator and all the other customers in the store as either a miser or a pov) under the name "Bettabuy" in honour of this.

It somehow managed to slip under the radar (product placement is illegal on British telly, even on the stations which accept advertisements; quiz shows are not allowed to announce the names of the sponsors of their prizes, and even mentioning specific brand names is frowned upon) probably because the product being advertised was one that people would actively avoid if given the choice.

There was a rule on the BBC against product placement until recently, I still don't think they do it for money, but in the old days, saya comedian was pretending to be drunk, he would have a label-less whiskey bottle, etc.

A few years back there was a Krusty Kola in real life, with the slogan 'nine out of ten kids can't tell the difference!'. It wasn't a commercial success, perhaps because its deliberately sick-looking yellow-green colour was too much for most children to handle...

They may have shot themselves it the foot on this one. Dunno about the US, but here in the UK we have strict rules about product placement, particularly in programs aimed at children. Now that they've made all these products real, would they be banned from showing them in the show, in the same way thay they cannot show real beers / colas / etc ?

The other day I bought a slurpee er.. squishiee and realized that the cup actually said "Squishiee" on it. First I thought Imy sleepy eyes were playing tricks on me, but nope, it was there and I just HAD to sing the song. Who needs a Guik-E-Mart? I doooooooo!!!

That's when the exteriors of 11 U.S. stores and one in Canada were flocked in industrial foam and given new signs to replicate the animated look of Kwik-E-Marts.

The U.S. locations where a 7-Eleven store was transformed into a Kwik-E-Mart are New York City; Chicago; Dallas; Denver; Burbank, Calif.; Los Angeles; Henderson, Nev.; Orlando, Fla.; Mountain View, Calif.; Seattle; and Bladensburg, Md.

Oh yeah, no need to tell us the location of the Canadian store because, you know, all we have to do is ask Steve. He lives in Canada, and it's such a small place that everybody knows about everything.

One of my earliest mentors in OSS, Perl hacking, and the guy who tuyrned me onto Slashdot, etc. owns the domain spfld.com. His name is (FOR REAL) Apu and he has (FOR REAL) a brother named Sanjay, he lives in (FOR REAL) Springfield, NJ not far from the (FOR REAL) Kwik-Stop convenience store. Yes, it is in fact destiny!
He's a great human being, volunteering his time as a Rescue Squad Captain, donating his talents to schools and such and was even a volunteer at 9/11 - truly a guy who deserves a helping ha

Pretty much the same thing with the Las Vegas/Henderson location. Not in a bad location per se, but really a WTF location when there are MUCH better/more centrally located stores. It's in a so/so neighborhood, in an asscrack area of the valley a small fraction will find it easy to get to.

Granted, they might have got more foot traffic from the LV Blvd/Charleston location, or the LV Blvd/Fremont location, but I have a feeling they chose the location they did for a good reason--that place is always busy. I'm in there 5-6x a week, and its always busy. Beyond that, its in a nicer neighborhood than most busy 7-11's in the Vegas area, so I figure that made it a solid choice in the Vegas valley.

Yeah, I was wondering that myself. No matter how far out you go you're 10-15mi out from the middle of the city, you'd think they'd put it somewhere more central so people from the northwest wouldn't have to drive -that- far just to see it. Like was mentioned, LV/Charleston would be a great location, but there's nicer areas to put them, there's a couple I can think of off the top of my head, but probably just because I'm selfish and I want them to be closer to my place. Also too bad someone let the simpso [lasvegassun.com]

I would have preferred the one on the IIT campus at 33rd street. It is staffed primarily by indians, too. Though the decorations would probably be down by the time I go back to Chicago for next semester...

People are going to flock to these, even if they're on top of the a remote mountain

You think people are going to inconvenience themselves by going out of their way to vist a convenience store because it looks vaguely like one that's on a TV show that jumped the shark long ago, and pay a premium for rebadged white-label snack food?

Yes. Have you encountered "people" before? Hell, some of them wait in lines overnight to see movies that would probably not be sold out if they just waited 24 hours or went to a less popular theatre.

The NY location is about a block from Times Square, though. I walked past it last night and was saying to myself "hmmm, has that always been there?" Very strange that I happened to see it so soon after it happened.

Uh... I'd tend to say that Kwik-Es has far more in common with 7-11's and other gas station convienence stores than they do with a supersized box store such as walmart. Small, overpriced, with an extremely limited selection of a somewhat wide variety of goods.

Actually, you have a point. The Kwik-E-Mart was a freaking parody of 7-11, takingthe piss out of all the cliche' complaints about it. The place is dirty, the food is made of dubious ingredients, the proprietor is a stereotype East Indian, it's a lousy place to work if you don't want to get shot, etc. Having the real thing embrace the name and image of the parody completely takes the wind out of the parody's sails. It's as if the real President Bush voiced the Bush parody in that "Little Bush" cartoon.

It is. And it wouldn't be funny, except at some time in our lives, we have all encountered someone like Apu. And, I'll admit, I accept any offense given my the stereotype as retribution for the economics TA I had in college ("I am not believing that you have all failed this exam so badly!").There are stereotypes everywhere in comedy - if you don't like it, don't watch. It's not like anybody really comes out looking good in the Simpsons. Except maybe Lisa, but nobody makes fun of smart, well adjusted girls.